Japanese experts revealed they made human egg cells from blood using a cutting-edge stem cell testing technique.

Although these eggs cannot be grown into babies as they are too immature, the research is paving the way for this type of experiment.

Now I will confess when I saw this article, my first thought was “Is there suddenly some shortage of people in China?” It doesn’t seem like they’re desperate enough for population to start cloning, although I seem to remember that Russia has a pretty significant demographic problem; maybe China could sell them some cloning clinics.

Gypsy in her favorite surroundings.

Back to dogs.

I had a dog in a million once. Gypsy was an English Springer Spaniel of the field strain, a long-legged, rangy, fast, tough dog, small enough to share a pickup cab easily with her owner (45 pounds or so) but big enough to retrieve big pheasants and mountain grouse.

She died in 1999. I cut my elk hunt short that year to rush home and spend Gyp’s last few hours with her. I loved that dog.

Would I have cloned her, had the technology existed then? No.

I know this is becoming a vanity thing, cloning a beloved pet, but as even the article above notes, the cloned animal won’t be a duplicate. You can’t step into the same river twice, and you can’t exactly reproduce a good gun dog by cloning; the unique combination of genetics and environment will never be exactly the same.

I’d rather remember Gyp the way she was, and when the time comes when I can give up my semi-nomadic existence and have another gun dog, I’ll get another dog entirely.